Success Made Easy

We all seem to want a magic bullet.

The idea of 'success made easy' probably got your attention, right? Yes, we all seem to want that “magic bullet” or the 3 Simple Steps to Success or the 4 Laws of Prosperity. Maybe we’d even accept a 7-step process. What if it was 149 steps? Would we still be interested? What if I told you it was hard? How would you feel? Or maybe you already think it’s hard to be a success or to be happy or to actually live the life you dream about. After all, we all have bills to pay, right?

When I look back at all of the classes, seminars, workshops, summits, and intensives I’ve spent time and money on where I was looking for the quick fix and the secret to making all of my dreams come true, I have to laugh at myself. 😀

You see, neither my mindset nor my belief system ever changed in the course of a weekend or an all-day event. Well, it didn’t change permanently in any case. And so the “magic bullet” and the quick fix eluded me. Undaunted, I still continued to look and long and yearn.

And I took action - lots of action.

If there were steps, I took them. I was an attentive and obedient student. And I had success, but it wasn’t the long-term success I was looking for. It’s sort of like a diet where through sheer willpower you reduce your calorie or carbohydrate intake and voila – weight loss occurs. But when the calories and carbohydrates start creeping back in and what happens? Our weight loss success is reversed and we gain back the weight.

Sometimes we need to use 'hacks' or 'tricks.' In the weight loss example from above, it might be possible to trick our mind and not use the word “diet” and adopt a healthy lifestyle instead. And then make conscious food choices that are in alignment with a healthy lifestyle. And if we forget? We accept it and then continue with healthy choices. No beating ourselves up because we fell off the diet. Simple, right?

Well, the same ideas can be applied to our success thinking.

Maybe we have to trick our minds.

Take a moment and think of two goals or dreams you might have (or had). Choose one that you consider easily attainable and the other one you simply don’t know how you could ever achieve it.

An attainable goal could be buying something expensive even if you don’t have the money right now or learning how to speak another language. And the hard goal could be something like becoming a millionaire or quitting your job and following your passion and dream.

Do you have those two goals in your mind? Good. You see, your own belief system informs you which goals are reasonable. And if they seem reasonable, you’ll take the steps necessary to accomplish them. You KNOW you can do it. Maybe you’ve done something similar before, you can see it being attainable, you can feel it being attainable, and you can sense it being attainable. Your mind doesn’t argue with yourself (well, at least not too much anyway).

But the other goal? OMG, it’s just too hard. You don’t know how to do it. You want it, but you don’t really see it happening. After all, you’ve wanted it for a long time and you’ve not achieved it. It becomes a pipe dream or maybe you stop dreaming about it altogether. And then you settle for only small successes, but deep down you know you’re settling and there is something ‘out there’ that you really, really want but are afraid to name it and claim it.

Because it is just too hard.  Because you think it's too hard.

You’ve heard this a million times, and now you are going to hear it a million and ONE times: your beliefs get in your way; your beliefs complicate things.

We’ve all had success in life. Maybe we graduated from college or got a good grade on a test or learned to play an instrument or improved our relationship. How did we do it? One step at a time, of course! Maybe we had confidence in our ability to achieve and accomplish this. Maybe we were focused or determined. Maybe we had faith or passion. Maybe we had vision and clarity of purpose. Whatever it was, we had it and we accomplished it.

So, we already know how to be successful and we’ve had practice.

No “magic bullet” needed. No more workshops, seminars, intensives, or summits.

Quite simply, it is our belief system, our mindset, which gets in the way. It isn’t the process that prevents us from being wildly successful or pursuing our scary goals and big visions. We need to remember that it isn’t as hard as we think it is and then take some consistent action. Not just one action and give up.

How many of us (either now or in the past) have woken up every single morning and went into a job we didn’t like, just to get that paycheck? Now, that’s hard and we do (or did) it. We take consistent action of setting the alarm clock, pouring our coffee, getting in the car, and driving into that J.O.B. Easy peasy (but maybe it is killing our soul, so that’s not so easy peasy after all).

Taking consistent action is the easy part.

We are masters at that. Now, let’s combine that consistent action with a new belief that engages our spirit and moves us into an idea that nothing is too hard to achieve; if we can think it, we can achieve it (oops, I think I just gave you the ‘magic bullet’).

And sometimes you need help to start or to stay consistent. That’s okay too. You’re forming new habits and patterns. Get a mentor or a trusted advisor. Get a coach or join a Mastermind group. Help is usually just a phone call or an email away.

Do yourself a favor, take some action; be open to changing the way you think about things. You might be amazed at the results you get.

Say YES to yourself by taking one small step toward your dream!

About Janet

Janet is a transformational coach who helps women move beyond the negative voices in their head so they can unleash their purpose, unmask their self-confidence, and uncover possibilities that they have been blind to. Bottom line: she helps them to stop settling, start soaring, and experience the magic of their dreams again.